Children are making use of the computer more and more. More than ever, parents need to keep an eye out for what their children are doing on the Internet. We've all heard about online predators, bullying, peer pressure and many other Internet safety issues. Essentially, mom's have three choices when it comes to protecting their children. These choices include filtering (censoring) what children can access with Internet filters, monitoring and recording what children do online and guiding them in what is acceptable, or disconnect children from the Internet all together. This article addresses internet safety tips for kids and discusses content censoring, access control and physical monitoring.
Help Your Kids Take Internet Safety Seriously
There was a time when you probably had one computer in the household that was located in the living room or den. If someone was using the computer, there was also someone around looking over his shoulder. Now, computers are found all over the house including in children's bedrooms. Who knows what kids do behind closed doors? Most computers today have Internet connections that bring the entire world into the home. Wouldn't it be so nice if you could teach your children what content to stay away from? We all know it isn't that simple. It is human nature to go where you're not supposed to just for the shear excitement of it. Ultimately, it's a parent's responsibility to monitor what her children are doing online. As moms, we need to take time to decide what we will do to monitor our children. There are ways to gain control and keep your family safe. These involve physical monitoring, access blocking, censorship and electronic monitoring.
The first and most important of the internet safety tips for kids is to put the family computer in a public place and ensure that you know when the kids are online. Establish rules about what your children can and can't access. So long as there are adults in the house, this will keep your children in line. All you need to do is walk by and look over their shoulders at any time. This is called physical monitoring and is the easiest and more sure way to monitor kids online. Physical monitoring works fairly well, but what happens if your kids are home alone during the day? When a parents isn't always available to watch over children, the solution is access blocking.
Access blocking does not work well for some operating systems. However, if you have Windows 2000 or a later Windows OS, you have security controls that work quite well. All you need to do is add user ID's and passwords and make sure your kids don't know what they are. When you want your children to have access to the computer, you log in for them. You can also use built in parental controls to limit the amount of time spent online each day. You can even specify certain times for internet use, such as the hours of 2 PM to 6 PM. The rest of the time, access to the internet will be restricted on your child's account. You can also access block internet access with a broadband router. Some routers will allow you to specify times that the Internet is accessible.
Another form of Internet control is website censorship. Website censorship can be done on three different levels: hardware level, software level or ISP level. Essentially, website censorship entails choosing a list of websites your child is allowed to visit. You can then use hardware or software to limit your child's access to only these approved sites. Alternatively, you can use a list of banned sites and allow access to all others, but this approach is hard to maintain since there are literally millions of sites that feature pornography and content inappropriate for children and listing them all is virtually impossible. Internet censorship software addresses this issue by scanning the internet for you and constantly updating the list of which sites are appropriate for children. This type of software comes in many forms. Some software is free. A simple internet search can yield dozens of good internet censorship software choices. There are also controls on Google and Yahoo. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can block objectionable material and may have programs that are specifically designed for kids. You can keep tabs on your children's surfing, web access, email and instant messaging (IM) through these ISP controls.
Ultimately, there is no way to entirely insulate our children from the internet. The best protection of all is talking to your child about the dangers that exist online and having frank conversations about what he does during his computer time. Parents who are highly engaged in their children's lives have the best chance of spotting a problem early on and preventing it from developing into serious consequences. No amount of software or gadgets can replace a strong parent-child relationship that is built on honesty, trust and understanding.
